


I Hear the Quiet in My Mind

by saltandlimes



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Newt Scamander is a ray of sunshine in a dark night, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Slash, in so many ways, the carrying case is magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8669308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: When Credence wakes up, he has soft sheets and a warm blanket. But nothing ever comes for free, and he knows this will be like every other time someone has "helped" him. Newt has never met something or someone he didn't believe was worth saving. Credence is no different.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have the uncontrollable desire to see Credence happy and cared for.

When he wakes up, the first thing he notices is the calm. 

The quiet.

As though a thousand voices, all screaming at once in his head to be let out, they’ve all been silenced, and now he’s left alone with the steady drip of rain out the window and the heavy weight of a blanket over top of him. 

Credence pushes himself up onto his elbows, feels his shoulders round inward and his stomach clench to make himself smaller. There’s someone else in the room. There’s _something_ else on the bed. He shrinks away from it, even as it begins to make a sound like a train roaring down the tracks. 

“That’s just a kneazle. She won’t bite or anything, but you needed to be kept warm.” The man turns around, curly hair askew. Credence tugs the blanket tighter about himself, draws his knees up to his chest. He thinks the thing next to him might be purring. 

He’s been stripped to his undershirt, and there’s a large bandage wrapped around his forehead. For a moment, Credence wonders if that’s what happened. If somehow, he hit his head and it all came pouring out - the tightness in his throat, the horrible lines across his palms, the feeling that he could take one wrong step and the world could break apart underneath his feet. 

But that’s absurd. 

He’d taken it all back into himself. Pulled that roiling black mass inside himself and pushed it to that still place where it’s always lurking, deep near the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t know what happened next. The man who Mr. Graves had been hurting had called out to him, and something in Credence had broken. Something that always trusted that Mr. Graves would make everything alright had finally been destroyed, and all Credence had been able to do was lie there, panting against the wall of the subway station. 

And he doesn’t remember what happened next. 

The man is peering at him now, head cocked to one side and hands busy with a heavy mug. It smells like tea. 

“Drink this. You look like you could use it.” The man’s voice is soft, footsteps light and slow as he makes his way over to Credence’s bedside. Even so, Credence can’t help but pull away, no matter that it puts him closer to the huge purring thing. “So you’re Credence. I know that. I’m Newt. Newt Scamander.”

For a moment, Credence thinks he’s hiccuping. But then he realizes that the jerking of his stomach, the flutter in his chest, it’s laughter. It’s been so long that he’s almost forgotten what laughter feels like. The man, Newt, smiles at him, grin stretching wide across his pointed face. 

“It’s just tea, I’m afraid. I haven’t got honey or milk or anything down here.” Credence nods. He hasn’t had tea in… well, he can’t actually remember the last time. Tea is an indulgence. He reaches out, feels the tremble in his fingertips as he wraps his hands around the mug. The warmth spreads through his hands, almost scorching in its intensity. He tightens his grip. 

“Can I sit here?” Credence jerks his head upward from where he’s been staring into the swirling clouds of steam. He nods, not trusting words to come out if he opens his mouth. Newt settles himself on the stool next to the bed. Credence’s stomach turns as he reaches out, and he wants to tumble over the side of the bed, find a corner and hide himself away from it all. But the huge cat-thing is in the way and he can’t escape. 

Newt straightens the covers. 

“Credence, I… I want to say that I’m sorry.” Credence glances up at Newt’s face again, at pink lips pursed under cheeks faintly red. “We, I mean.. Wizards… we all failed you. You should never have had to go through this. It’s wrong. We…” Newt breaks off and Credence takes a deep breath.

“Wizards?” His voice cracks on the word, but he can’t seem to get enough breath back, make his mouth moist enough to say more. Newt waves a hand, long arms flailing a little. 

“Witches, magical people, us all. This should never have happened. We should have found you, saved you.” Credence shakes his head. 

“You did find me, didn’t you? Mr. Graves did.” Newt sighs, a long drawn out sound that has the cat-thing arching its back and curling tighter against Credence’s leg. 

“Mr. Graves… Credence, he lied to you. You know that now. He lied to the entire magical government here. But that’s not important. Someone else should have noticed you long before he ever did. Someone should have saved you. I know it’s too little, too late, but… I’m sorry.” As Credence watches, Newt flushes bright, even as his voice rises. It’s passion, the passion that Credence has always wanted more than anything else in the world. 

Credence takes a long sip of the tea, feels the warmth slide down his throat to pool, incredible and strong, in the pit of his stomach. In that place where the darkness has rested for as long as he remembers, and he wonders if the tea is somehow washing it away, leaving nothing but pure light and strength. 

He wonders if that is even possible. 

“Back there, in the station?” Credence’s voice is barely a whisper but he has to know this. He needs the answer. “Did you mean it? Did you really know someone else like me?”

Newt’s face clouds, lips pursing and eyes hooding. Credence feels some of the tea slosh over his fingers as his hands tremble. He’s said something wrong. Asked a question he shouldn’t ask. And there’s still no way out of the room. He holds tighter to the mug, wonders if he could make it to the door if he dropped the mug on Newt’s lap. Before he can do anything, though, Newt’s smiling again, a tight, sad smile. 

“I did. She was a little girl I met in Africa. She’d been locked up and her magic had gotten locked up in her because of that. No one should be put in a cage.” This time, the fire in Newt’s eyes seems to reach out, to warm the edges of Credence’s shoulders where the heat from the tea hasn’t quite penetrated. 

“What happened to her?” He asks. Newt hasn’t done anything because Credence asked the first question, hasn't done anything bad. Maybe Credence can find out this much. Something has to have happened to her. Something is happening to him. 

“She died.” Newt’s voice is clipped. “I couldn’t get to her in time, I couldn’t save her.” Credence bites his lip, chews hard until he tastes blood. He’d thought, just maybe, that the voices were gone because Newt had fixed him.

Stupid.

No one can ever fix him.

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Fingers digging into the muscle, and Credence feels himself shiver under the tight grasp. He can feel calluses through the thin fabric of his undershirt, the roughness of hands used to long hours of work. Newt doesn’t look the type, he thinks a little wildly. But then Newt is using the grip on his shoulder to swing Credence around, to force their eyes to meet. 

“You are not going to die, Credence. Do you feel different than before, just a little bit?” Credence nods. The silence. It’s real then. “I’m going to help you. I swear it. You’re not dangerous, not like they think. I’ll show them. I’ll show you.”

He’s wrong, of course. 

Credence knows that. He’s always been dangerous. Ma might have been wrong about the witches, but she wasn’t wrong about people like him. He can’t be fixed. Newt is staring at him though, eyes bright and wide, as though he expects Credence to say something in return. 

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Newt,” Credence manages, cradling the mug of tea tighter. 

“You don’t believe me?” Newt asks, then shakes his head. “Of course you don’t believe me. You hardly know me. Come one. I have something to show you.” He stands and makes his way to a battered leather case in the corner of the narrow room. Credence slides his legs off the bed, sets his bare feet on the cold wooden floor. He’s wearing pajama pants, pants he’s never owned, silky and soft, and it feels like the greatest luxury in the world, smooth fabric around his legs and an undershirt without holes draped across his chest. For a moment, he can’t seem to find his feet underneath himself, stumbles against the bare floor. But then there’s a hand at his elbow and Newt is catching him, holding him up. 

Credence tries to smile, just a little. 

It’s the first time he’s tried in years, the first moment someone has caught him, has saved him from falling without asking for anything in return.

There’s always something he needs to give up in return. Newt will ask for it soon. 

“Come on, Credence!” Newt sounds excited now, delighted, face cracking into that wide grin that stretches out the man’s narrow cheeks. He pulls Credence along until they’re in front of the case. Newt flips open the catches and peers inside. 

“Don’t be worried. There’s a ladder, if you feel around for it when you step inside. I’ll get in first and you can just follow along, alright?” Credence nods. Follow along? But then Newt is stepping inside the crate, legs disappearing as though going straight through the floor down to some hidden room. Credence has a wild thought that maybe there’s a trapdoor underneath the case, that it’s not a piece of luggage after all, but rather a cunningly disguised door. But that can’t be true, because he saw Newt move the thing earlier. 

Newt is almost entirely inside now, head just disappearing beyond the edge of the case. For a moment, just a single instant, Credence wonders what would happen if he just left. Shut the lid and ran away. He’s been out on the streets, knows how things work out there, even if he’s never been a beggar. He could do it. But then Newt’s words come back to him. _She died._ And won’t he die too, alone and friendless, with this thing bottled up so deep inside him that most of the time it feels like nothing more than creeping poison, eating him alive? 

He steps into the case. 

He can feel the first rungs of the ladder under his bare feet, and he sets the mug of tea down as he climbs into the case. _Into the case_. Credence can’t decide if the frantic beating of his heart is because he’s terrified, or because of something else. 

He’s never had a dream come true, after all. 

He keeps his eyes fixed on the rungs of the ladder as he makes his way to the bottom. There’s more cold wood under his feet there, and he steps back hesitantly, turns to place his back against the ladder and the wall. 

He gasps. 

It’s a room. More than a room, a world inside a suitcase, and Credence wonders if this is it. Has he finally snapped? He’s always known he would, someday at least. He takes a stumbling step forward. 

“Credence?” Newt appears from around a corner, “I want you to meet someone.” He’s over at Credence’s side in an instant, a warm hand slipping into Credence’s trembling one. Then he’s setting off again, pulling Credence deeper inside the maze of wherever this is. Finally, they’re next to a wide set of curtains. Newt pushes them aside, and tugs Credence inside. 

It’s a forest. At least, Credence thinks it is. He’s never actually been in a forest - never been outside New York city, no matter how much he’d begged and pleaded. But this, with its trees and its bushes and its _green_ , this has to be a forest. Newt drops his hand and kneels down, makes a soft grunting noise. 

For a moment, nothing happens. Then, as if out of nowhere, a small ash colored pig-thing appears. It grunts in return, then sidles up to Newt to nudge at his thigh with its snout. Newt looks up at Credence, eyes crinkled and warm. 

“This is Tamara. She’s a tebo. They’re very rare. I found her in the Belgian Congo, where she was getting hunted. She almost didn’t make it - she had a spear through her side when I found her and couldn’t even manage to make herself go invisible again. But I got her out of there, nursed her back to health.”

“Invisible?” Credence manages. 

“Yes. Tebo are very strong and can also become invisible when they choose. I think the men who were hunting her wanted her for her hide. It’s very powerful.” Credence crouches a little way away. For a moment, he thinks that nothing is going to happen. But then Tamara heaves herself upright, makes her ponderous way over to him. 

His breath catches in his throat. Up close, she’s much larger, a huge ash colored warthog with sharp looking tusks. He huddles in on himself. And then she butts her snout against his leg, soft and gentle. There’s a woofing noise as she snuffles at him. Newt smiles over. 

“Do you like her?”

“I… I don’t know. She seems friendly enough?” Credence can hardly stop himself from shying away, running to the ladder and running and running until this is all just a distant memory.

It will never be a distant memory. Nothing ever is. 

“She’s friendly enough, as long as you don’t hurt her or the people she loves. Then she’s ferocious.” Newt stands, makes his way over and pulls Credence to his feet, then draws him back into the main room of the case.

“Do you know why I showed you Tamara?” Credence shakes his head. He hasn’t the foggiest notion, unless it was to show off how powerful Newt is. 

“Because you are like Tamara, Credence. Beautiful and powerful, but you need to be protected. You deserve it. Understanding, Credence. That’s what you need. Not hatred or control.” Newt takes a deep breath, and Credence realizes that their hands are still laced together, that Newt’s grip has become bruisingly strong. “I saved Tamara. I’m going to save you. I swear it, Credence. I am going to save you, and you’ll never have to be afraid of them again. Of anyone.”

Credence takes a deep breath. Newt has leaned forward, and their foreheads are almost touching. He can feel the warmth from Newt’s skin, strange and clean and new. He lets out the breath, sighing it into the still air of the case. Newt presses their foreheads together and Credence feels a spark run down his spine. 

“I believe you,” he says, and somehow, somehow he does.

**Author's Note:**

> I went into Fantastic Beasts expecting to come out shipping something totally different than this. I came out with the strong desire to see Credence and Newt happy and odd and awkward together. 
> 
> As an aside, hey ship names: newdence or bonemander have been suggested to me?
> 
> All power to my wonderful beta, [kyluxtrashbin](http://kyluxtrashbin.tumblr.com/), who also kindly ranted about Credence with me for hours. 
> 
> Come hang with me on tumblr [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
